


The Dry Land

by atamascolily



Category: Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Crossover, Flying, Gen, Krayt Dragons, Leaving Home, One Shot, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope, Tatooine, Womp Rats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 06:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14665229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: When Luke rescues a man from a strange and far away place called Earthsea, the encounter shapes both of their lives in unexpected ways.





	The Dry Land

**Author's Note:**

> Most of my fics begin with questions--sometimes convoluted ones--whose answers appeal to me. In this case, the question was "What if Tatooine was the Dry Land, and what would happen if Ged stumbled there at the end of the _The Farthest Shore_?"

Luke had known about the womp rat hive on the edge of Beggar's Canyon for weeks, but between the main 'vaporator breaking right in the middle of harvest, and the monthly ordeal of shipping the harvested water to town, he hadn't managed to get off the farm to deal with it yet. He asked Biggs to come with him, but Biggs was busy with his Academy application - which was something of a sore spot between them, since Uncle Owen had forbidden Luke from even _thinking_ about sending off his own. 

So when Luke found the stranger, he was alone - except for the gang of womp rats he'd just stirred up, hissing and spitting like mad as they boiled out of their hive in every direction. 

As their name suggested, womp rats were rodents in shape and ancestry, and they made a satisfying pop when you strafed them from the air. Your average rat was about two meters long, covered with a patchy coating of tawny hairs, and ferociously territorial, attacking anything that didn't smell like kin. They lived in hierarchal colonies in vast burrows they carved in the redrock walls and floors of the canyon that they softened with their acidic saliva.

That same saliva would burn your skin if you got too close, so the best way to hunt them was from a distance-- preferably in a vehicle with a closed cabin, to keep them from swarming you en masse. Luke preferred his battered but serviceable T-16 Skyhopper to Bigg's fancier M-19, even if it _was_ a few klicks faster in the open air. Down in the canyons proper, with the rock walls pressing so close and so many jagged boulders blocking narrow openings, speed wasn't as important as maneuverability, and once a swarm got going, every evasion counted. 

Rat hives weren't subtle. You smelled them before you saw them, if the wind was blowing in the right direction, and their pale, pasty spoor stood out from a distance against the flaming redrock. Luke was grateful that the atmospheric controls on the T-16 filtered out the reek of urea that radiated out from the hive, so he didn't have to worry about that. 

He brought the craft over the ridge twenty meters from twisted, melted mess of rock and gravel that marked the hive's main entrance, aimed his proton torpedo at the dead center of the pile, and fired twice. The first shot was just to get their attention. The second shot was what sent eight rats over the edge into attack mode. 

The only problem was that there was someone else between Luke and the pack, someone he hadn't noticed earlier. 

He was slumped over on the rocks roughly halfway between the skyhopper and the nest, so still and motionless in his ragged brown cloak that Luke hadn't even noticed him at first. The life form sensors on his targeting computer had pinged, yes, but in his excitement to finally have a go at the rats, he'd ignored it completely. There was a person out there, humanoid in form, too big to be a Jawa and not masked like a Tusken. Human, by the looks of it. 

And with all of the rats bursting out of the hive at once, Luke had maybe fifteen seconds before they ate him alive. 

"Oh, _kriff_ ," Luke swore, and wrenched the skyhopper forward, firing in all directions at the rats to give them something to think about. Two went down right away with shrill screams of pain, three more staggered and kept going, and the rest didn't even flinch. That was okay, though; it gave Luke time enough to wrench the skyhopper over the boulders where he'd hidden himself and place himself between the rats and the stranger. 

As he'd hoped, the rats went for the skyhopper, slamming into the body of the craft and bouncing back in uncontrolled frenzy. Flecks of spittle hit the windows and there was a fizzing hiss as the duriplast corroded under the impact, but it was rated to three times what a rat was capable of producing under stress, and it held firm enough for now. Given time, the rats could probably chew their way in after him, but Luke had no intention of giving them the opportunity. 

At point-blank range, it was practically a slaughter, but the rats refused to go quietly. Luke had to hit some of them twice to get them to stay down, and it took another few minutes for the last one to stop twitching and die. Finally, after the commotion had died down, he dared to open the hatch and step out to assess the damage. 

He was close, much closer to the nest than he'd like to be, but he hadn't any choice if he wanted to save the stranger, who hadn't so much as twitched even with the battle raging right in front of him. Were it not for the stubborn insistence of the T-16's computer, Luke would have thought him already dead. But he was here, and the rats were dead, so he might as well check it out. 

Eight rats was about the average size of a hive, but the tunnels twisted and tangled under the rock and there was no telling if others might show up. He had to get in and out fast, preferably without hurting the man in the process. 

"Hey," he said, kneeling down, and peeling the stranger's hood back as he checked for a pulse. Up close, Luke could see the man's copper-toned cheek inside his hood, with three distinctive, deeply lined scars running across it, as if he had been attacked by some sort of enormous animal. "Are you okay? What happened?" 

The man moaned at Luke's touch, though he was so dehydrated it took him several attempts to cough out an intelligible reply. "Arren? Is that you, Arren?" 

_Must be delirious_ , Luke thought. "Come on, we have to go," he said gently. "Let me help you up." 

"Lebannen," the man said, though he let Luke brace a shoulder under his arm to help him to his feet. "My powers are spent, Lebannen--" 

"Shhhh, come on, let's get going," Luke said. The strong light of double noon burned his exposed skin, and he didn't want to be out here in the open any more than he had to at this time of day--especially not with a rat nest so close. "You're going to be all right. I've got you." 

Half-walking, half-carrying his stricken companion, Luke moved slowly towards the shelter of the skyhopper. The man was babbling now in a language Luke had never heard before and Luke kept soothing him in Basic as best he could. 

If this were a normal hunt, Luke would take a few of the rats home with him for the kitchen (once the acid glands were cut out, the meat was safe to eat and Aunt Beru made a mean cream of womp rat stew). But he had his hands full with the stranger and he had the feeling that every second mattered if the man was going to survive. 

It was cramped inside the T-16 with two people, but nothing he hadn't been able to handle before; the man wasn't nearly as tall as Biggs was. Once he had the stranger strapped to the co-pilot's chair, he fished out his water bottle, several saline packets, and an instant gel-pack from the emergency medkit under his own seat and set to work to keep the man stable until they reached the farm. 

He snapped the gelpack, transforming it from tepid to cold in an instant, placing that gently on the man's neck. Then he opened his water bottle and poured the contents of the saline packets in, shaking it vigorously for even distribution. Only then did he tilt the man's head back, giving him a few sips of water before pulling the container away. 

The man coughed and sputtered and for a second Luke thought he was going to choke, but then his reflexes stepped in and he swallowed. "More," he said after a moment. "Please?" 

Luke shook his head. Give the man too much water now, and he'd drink himself to death as his system overloaded, even with all the electrolytes mixed in. "In a few minutes. You're still very weak right now, and I don't want to tax your systems further. Besides, we have to get out here." 

"Lebannen," the man said weakly, and closed his eyes, relaxing back into the support of the chair. "Thank you, Lebannen." 

"You're welcome," Luke said, wondering if he should mention that he wasn't actually Lebannen, before he decided it didn't really matter now. He made sure the skyhopper's door was secure and cranked the temperature dial as low as it could go. The air conditioner didn't work right in this thing, and never went above medium strength, but it was the best he could do right now. 

"All right," he said aloud, as he brought the T-16 into the air again and wheeled it back in the direction of the Lars' moisture farm. "Time to go home." 

The stranger's only reply was another hoarse, ragged moan. 

*** 

True to form, Owen was gruff and unhappy at the thought of a stranger in their midst. Beru quieted him with a single firm glance before pushing Luke out of the way and bustling the man off to the spare bedroom, where the farmhands used to stay back when the Lars had been rich enough to hire out for help. She got the saline IV in his arm with the help of the wheezing and ancient med droid, and sat by his bedside for hours, dishing him small portions of broth at regular intervals to supplement the nutrients and liquids in the IV. 

"He's going to be all right," she said in response to Luke and Owen's unspoken questions at the dinner table that night. "Lucky you found him in time, Luke." 

"Lucky for him or for us?" Owen grumbled. "Some ne'er do well tries to commit suicide out in the desert and it becomes _our_ problem--" 

Luke and Beru both ignored him, focusing on the reheated bantha casserole in front of them. Owen was fiercely skeptical of any novelty, but the lack of heat in his mutterings meant he wasn't particularly serious. Vagrant or not, they couldn't have left him to die, and they all knew it. 

The stranger slept for two days straight. When he woke again on the third day, Luke went to see him after Beru took the IV out of his arm. 

"Thank you," the man said gravely. He sat up in his bed, staring at Luke with his bright, luminous eyes, his head turned so only his unscarred cheek was visible, his posture dignified and graceful despite his weakness. There was a bandage around his right arm, just underneath the elbow, where the IV had been. 

"You're welcome," Luke said, though he felt awkward and bumbling compared to the other man's steady, solid presence. "What's your name?" 

The man considered him evenly for a moment. "I'm called Hawk," he said at last. 

"Hawk?" Luke repeated. It seemed to have some sort of meaning to the other man, but whatever it was eluded him. "Who is Lebannen?" he said instead. 

Hawk drew himself up, as if bracing against deep pain. "My companion who was with me before. I called you by his name, but I know you are not him. He is safe now, gone beyond the Dry Land to his kingdom as was prophesied, while it seems I must remain here for now where only the dead tarry. Yet I am still living -- and I have no power now to take me back across the wall, or over the mountains that are called Pain. I must be a ghost now, neither truly living nor truly dead." 

Hawk seemed lucid enough, yet he must be still raving; Luke had no idea what he was talking about. He'd never heard of any mountains called Pain. "The place where I found you is called Beggar's Canyon," he said tentatively, unwilling to correct such an authoritative statement, even when it was utter nonsense. "This isn't the land of the dead, and you're not a ghost, you're as alive as I am. What are you even talking about?" 

Hawk froze. He turned to face Luke squarely, the three ragged slashes on his face all the more prominent with the sunlight from the window streaming on his face. "Your hair and skin are so pale, like a Kargs, and yet you do not speak Kargish at all. And I have never seen a Karg in the Dry Land. Who are you?" 

"I'm Luke Skywalker. This is a pretty dry place, all right - but I don't think it's the place you're thinking of. What were you doing out there all alone, anyway?" 

"Restoring the springs of--" Hawk broke off abruptly, shaking his head. "I was on a quest," he said, after a moment. "A quest that I knew I might die from, yet was called upon to complete. And now--" 

A long pause stretched out between them, one Luke dared not break. 

"I do not know where I am," Hawk said at last. "Or what I am, now that I am far from home and my powers are spent." 

"Don't worry, you'll get better," Luke said, patting his shoulder. "Look, I'll go and get you some more bantha stew. We'll have you up and running again in no time." 

Hawk nodded, and said nothing, though his eyes were grieved, and he turned away towards the wall as Luke left the room. 

*** 

True to Luke's prediction, Hawk regained his strength quickly under Beru's ministrations, and was soon up out of bed and carefully walking through the underground tunnels of the main compound. He was ignorant of even the most basic aspects of life - his astonishment at the lightswitches and Luke's instructions on how to use a 'fresher were genuinely unfeigned. But Luke found him to be a quick study, and rarely had to explain the same thing twice. 

There was no direct discussion of payment--that would be crass even by Owen's standards--but Hawk seemed to determine to give back in whatever way he could. At first, he helped Beru in the kitchen, seated at a big table where he chopped vegetables and applied spices to dried algae and protein paste to make their simple meals more tolerable on the palate. Later, as his strength returned, he assisted Owen and Luke with the repairs on the 'vaporators and other aspects of the daily water harvest. Owen might curse at his ignorance--"Has the man ever _seen_ a hydrospanner in his life?"--but again Hawk proved to be a quick study, surpassing even Luke on some of the less complicated repairs. Within a few weeks, he fit into the Lars' household like a well-oiled machine, so much so that Luke almost dared to hope that Owen might let him leave for the Academy next year after all. 

For his part, Luke was grateful to have another person around, someone to talk to during the long desert nights, when the hot wind blew mercilessly and the sandstorms cut off contact with the outside world. He taught Hawk to play sabacc and shoot a blaster, and answered Hawk's questions about life on Tatooine (or the Dry Land, as he persisted on calling it). Occasionally, if he were very lucky, Hawk would share a story or two from his own life, from a planet so strange and wondrous Luke could barely believe it to be real. 

Hawk was born on a planet called Earthsea, which was a series of island archipelagos, all surrounded by more water than Luke had ever seen in his life--"too salty to drink, mind you". Its residents sailed these waters on in simple structures called boats, that skimmed the surface the way a T-16 Skyhopper did in the air. Hawk had grown up on one of the smaller islands, tending miniature bantha-like creatures called 'goats' before he'd gone to his world's version of the Academy, where he had trained in the arts of--

"You would call it magic, I guess, and impossible, but for us, such marvels are commonplace, and a repulsorlift or a droid would be thought too farfetched to be real. Different rules, perhaps, for different places," Hawk said wryly, noting the skepticism on Luke's face whenever the word "magic" came up.

"Don't mention that to my uncle," Luke warned. "He always gets angry whenever the supernatural comes up. Starts ranting about magic and wizards being charlatans and frauds and how no good can come from it. I know he likes you, but you don't want to start a fight with him."

Hawk nodded. "In his own way, your uncle is correct. As with any power, there are those who would abuse it. And it was my task to stop such a man, corrupt in his mind and heart, who sought power over the living as well as the dead, and drain the springs of wizardry dry--" He cut himself off abruptly, as if he'd said too much. 

"And here I am," he said at last, as if to himself. "Ah, Tenar, now I understand how it must feel to be reborn, a stranger in a stranger place!" 

"What do you mean?" Luke said. Hawk's continued emphasis on life and death was a strange one, and he wasn't sure how to make sense of it. 

Hawk smiled slightly. "Forgive me," he said. "All that I know is of no use here, and there is no call for it. And even if there was, I could not do it now that the power has been lost to me. The mind remembers the words, but the gift is gone. And now, I will try to learn what I must know to live here, for the way home is closed to me now. There is no road over these mountains that can return me to Earthsea." 

He said it so simply and without bitterness, yet there was such grief there, too, that Luke could think of nothing to say in response. 

They sat together in silence for a long time. 

*** 

Of the many marvels of life on the Lars homestead, Hawk loved flying the most. Luke took him out in the T-16 for a lesson one day, and despite the cramped cabin, it wasn't long before Hawk was wheeling and diving like a born pilot. 

"It's hard to believe you've never flown before," Luke said when they had finished. 

"It's not," Hawk said, wiping the sweat beading on his forehead. The air conditioner in the cabin was broken again, and stubbornly refusing to work properly no matter how much he and Luke fussed with it. "I used to fly all the time. That's one reason they called me 'Hawk' after all--" 

"Hawk? That means something?" 

"It's the name of a creature on Earthsea that soars in the air, high overhead, wheeling and diving to the ground below. You truly have nothing like that here?"

Luke shook his head. "There are sand flies and midges and a host of other insects, and we have bats, but the only thing that gets really big is a krayt dragon--" 

Hawk jerked visibly, as if he'd touched a spark plug again by accident. " _Dragons_? You have _dragons_ here? Why didn't you tell me? Maybe they could help me return home after all--" 

"Okay, okay, we can go look for a krayt dragon," Luke said. Something about Hawk's sudden fervency unnerved him, but he didn't know why. "They're pretty impressive if you've never seen one before, and dangerous enough that most people avoid messing with them. They're mostly active in the morning and evening, between the first and second sunrise and the first and second sunsets. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru will throw a fit if they find out, but we can go out tonight if you want." 

"I must see them," Hawk said, staring ahead fixedly into space. He was gripping the controls so hard that Luke feared they might break off in his hands. "I _must_." 

*** 

It took them three weeks of twice-daily surveillance flights to see a krayt dragon. Luke was grouchy and annoyed, as it was a strain to hide their activities from Owen and Beru for so long, and it didn't leave much room for anything else given all the chores. But Hawk was a man possessed, grim and determined, and he flew the skyhopper with a fierce intensity, scouring every inch of the terrain in search of his quarry. 

It was twilight when they finally saw one--a distinctive, long-necked silhouette against the horizon.

"There!" Hawk shouted with a howl of triumph, wrenching the T-16 forward. 

As they rocketed towards the dragon, which grew larger and larger as they approached, Luke realized it wasn't a run of the mill canyon krayt as he'd expected. Instead, it was a greater krayt, its massive bulk sticking up out of the sand, stretching out nearly a hundred meters on the ridgeline of the dunes. Its skin was jet black, and its tail, tucked neatly around the last pair of its ten legs, was armed with thick spikes, each one big enough to knock the T-16 out of the sky. 

And Hawk was steering them straight towards it. 

"Wait, Hawk, what are you doing?" Luke yelled, but it was too late. Hawk brought the skyhopper to the ground with a jarring and ungraceful thud far too close to the dragon for Luke's comfort. Hawk was up out of his restraints and out the hatch before Luke could stop him, rushing towards the krayt dragon on foot and waving his arms frantically. "You don't want to get its attention like that--" 

But Hawk did. He was shouting something in a language Luke didn't understand at the dragon, over and and over again. 

The krayt dragon looked over at Hawk and yawned. And said nothing. 

What did Hawk expect? That the dragon would turn its head and answer in human speech? Yet Hawk kept shouting, stamping on the ground, a frantic, gesticulations, growing more and more desperate--

"Hawk, _no_ \--" Luke cried from the door of the skyhopper. 

The krayt dragon grew tired enough of this display, and lashed out with its massive tail and wings, bowling Hawk back towards the skyhopper in a spray of sand. Sensing his opportunity, Luke rushed down the hatch to grab Hawk's shoulder and pull him back towards the relative shelter of the craft. 

But, incredibly, Hawk fought him, tooth and nail, still shouting at the dragon. 

"Cob has taken away your power of speech," Hawk raved. He was angrier and more emotional than Luke had ever seen him in all their time together; the dragon's silence had upset him deeply. "You are a dumb beast now, there is no hope for you, and none for me now that you have forsaken your heritage--" 

And then, to Luke's horror, Hawk burst into tears. "Take me with you! Take me with you back home! I know you know where it is even if you cannot speak of it--"

The krayt dragon sniffed and turned away, ignoring the two puny creatures completely at its mercy despite Hawk's rants. 

It wasn't until Luke had wrestled the sobbing man back into the skyhopper and they fled from the dragon's sight that Hawk regained control of himself. "Forgive me, Luke," was all he said, and he collapsed back into the co-pilot's chair into unconsciousness. 

*** 

Something changed in Hawk after their encounter with the greater krayt. He spoke little, and never smiled. He was restless and agitated, pacing the floor instead of sitting still. When he did speak, his questions were of flight and travel, filled with a burning need to escape. 

"There are ships that can travel between the stars?" Hawk asked. 

Luke nodded, explaining that they were more complicated versions of the T-16, geared to withstand the vacuum of space and equipped with special engines to travel faster than the speed of light. 

Hawk listened thoughtfully to this rambling account with a pensive expression on his face. "How do I go there?" 

"We-ell," Luke started, caught off guard by his companion's directness. "That's the million-credit question, isn't it? I've been trying to get off this rock for several years now, and Owen won't let me go. Says he needs me for the harvest." He didn't mention his hope that Hawk might stay, and let him go; there was no denying the hunger in Hawk's face, that desperate, urgent need to be gone. 

"Your uncle has no hold over me," Hawk said.

It was true. Luke nodded slowly. "You can catch a transport at Mos Eisley--that's the spaceport. I've never been there myself, but you can catch a transport over at Anchorhead--" 

"Let's go, then," Hawk said, rising to his feet. 

"Now?" 

Hawk slumped back down. "No, not now. There is much that I need to do before I am ready to leave. But--soon." 

***

Owen, who had grumbled so much at Hawk's unexpected arrival, was distressed to see him go. He hated change even more than he hated strangers, and losing a skilled farmhand in the process was a bitter blow. 

"We'll miss you, Hawk," he said, as they shook hands. "You've been a great help to us, and there's a place for you here if you want it if the spacefaring life doesn't suit you." 

Hawk nodded gravely, and thanked him for his hospitality and kindness. He kissed Beru on the cheek and they gazed at each other for moment, needing no words between them. Then he slung his meager bag over his shoulder and turned to Luke. 

"It's time," he said simply. 

The ride to Anchorhead was quiet, the only sound the landspeeder screaming in the wind. There was so much Luke wanted to say, but couldn't--nothing seemed right, nothing appropriate to say to the man who had stumbled so unexpectedly into his life. A man who was escaping the Dry Land and the endless toil of a moisture farmer's life, journeying to the stars to find his destiny, as Luke longed to do. 

When they reached the town limits, Hawk's eyes widened at the assemblage of pale white huts, filled more people than he had seen in several months--since he'd left Earthsea, wherever that was. 

"This is where the transport picks up," Luke said, as he brought the speeder into the central square where the market vendors had set up their carts, calling out the virtues of their wares to passers-by. "You've got about an hour or so before the next one comes. You have the money I gave you?" 

Hawk nodded. "Thank you, Luke. I owe you my life many times over." 

Luke flushed. "Ah-I did- I mean, don't worry about it-" he stammered. "You would have done the same for me had our positions been reversed." 

"Perhaps I will be able to repay you someday," Hawk said. "I have a feeling our paths will cross again in the future and grant me that opportunity to help you as you have helped me."

"Ah," Luke said, not knowing what else to say, but aware that Hawk was gifting him with something momentous and meaningful in his own way. "Thank you." 

Hawk looked away first, back towards the wide expanse of the desert on the horizon. "And I think I will take on a new name, to mark this new journey and new life."

"Oh?" Luke said. How many names did one person need, anyway? Was this a traditional custom on Earthsea? How very strange. 

Hawk nodded. "This is not my world," he said, "though it is my home, until I am called back across the sea, for which my heart yearns. Perhaps I will find it voyaging among the stars; perhaps I will be doomed to wander until the end of my days. I am the only one from my world in this place and it is a lonely feeling." 

"So what will I call you when I see you again?" Luke asked. 

For the first time since the krayt dragon, Hawk smiled. 

"Solo," he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, okay, so probably Ged would be a farmer on any world after he loses his powers (just on Tatooine instead of Gont) and live a quiet life a la Ben Kenobi. But I was struck by the parallels between the _Millennium Falcon_ and "Sparrowhawk" and "the White Lady" and Princess Leia, so I decided to go in a different direction instead.


End file.
